


Things

by mmmdraco



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Souji unpacks and thinks of himself before and after Inaba.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things

It's hard for Souji to believe that it's only been a year. Not even a year, really. But what changes that time has wrought...

Standing back in his room in his hometown now, everything feels strange. It doesn't seem to matter that he lived in this room for years before heading off to Inaba. This no longer feels like home. In hindsight, it never did.

As Souji looks around the room, he is surprised by how little of himself is represented. One photo of himself with his parents, only a few books, a daruma with neither eye filled in, and linens of a color so bland that he can't believe anyone bothered to manufacture them... He didn't bring a lot with him to Inaba, so the stark white walls and empty shelves are as much a reflection of who he used to be as anything could be.

That's changed now. Souji has changed. He only has one more box to unpack now, and that's the one that's going to change it all. His clothes are put away (even his Yasogami school uniform is tucked away in a dry cleaning bag in his closet) and have been for days now, but the last of his belongings had to be shipped to him and they'd just arrived. Souji tears open the large box, sealed as it is with packing tape and labels, and eyes the bubble wrap inside with a grin.

On the very top of the box is one of the toy model kits that he'd put together, wrapped with care (and a lot of bubble wrap) to keep any of the pieces from breaking off during shipping. Souji unwraps it and places it on the shelf above his computer that he'd already dusted off just for this.

He puts his spike brush away in a cleared-out desk drawer along with a shrine charm, an ema, a wrist band, a detective badge... He moves his school bag on top of his desk and puts an old fountain pen in it, along with a compact mirror and a clover bookmark. There's a folder nestled along the side of the box that's filled with origami paper and a Junes receipt, a handful of letters and scripts... Souji laughs to discover an unfolded envelope in there, too. There are pictures: an autographed picture of Rise, the photo that Nanako had given him that felt more like his family than anything that existed here... Even the paper armband he'd gotten was carefully folded and tucked away. The whole folder slid into the drawer easily, but the photos were left out. He'd hang those up somewhere soon enough.

The strap from Kanji was put onto his phone with only a tinge of embarassment at the cuteness, and the bandage from Yosuke... Souji slid it into his wallet to carry around with him. His maneki neko gets put next to the daruma and he's ready to move on, but he pauses and looks at the daruma with it blank white eyes and tries to remember how many years he's had it without even tempting Fate with a wish. He grabs a felt-tip pen from the desk and carefully draws in one eye while thinking about what he wants for the future. He restores the daruma to the shelf and the pen to the drawer and moves on.

The jewelry he'd acquired in Inaba (minus the wristwatch he'd worn there that had gotten sold off to buy Yosuke some better armor) got scattered as artfully as Souji could manage across the top of his dresser, and the mittens from Ayane got tucked into a drawer to wait out whenever cold weather might come around again. 

He takes a moment with the coffee mug from Dojima... His initial reaction is to put it in the kitchen so he can actually use it. But, in the end, it sits next to the model kit because he can't bear the thought of being the one to serve up coffee in it.

The books take up the entire bottom of the box and then some. His barren bookshelves are reunited with some of his old favorites like his book of gags, but they're joined shortly by the Timid Teacher series and the Man's Life series and all of the other novels and reference materials that he'd picked up in Inaba. Souji remembered the half-shelf of books he'd had a year ago, but his books now were crammed on to two shelves, and shifting them to three wouldn't look that odd either.

Souji's phone rang and he answered it after a brief glance at the called ID. "Yosuke?"

"Hey partner! Getting settled back in okay?"

Glancing around the room that already felt a little better, a little more him, Souji smiled. "Yeah. I got the package I sent myself today with all of that stuff I couldn't fit in my luggage."

"Uh, you didn't find one of my magazines in there, did you?"

Souji cleared his throat. "That may have gotten left under the futon."

There was a pause, then: "Aww, man! Your uncle is going to know it's mine and think that I'm some total pervert!"

"You _are_ some total pervert."

"You weren't complaining when we were looking through that magazine together!"

"Oh!" Souji reached into the box and pulled out Sayoko's name tag where it was wedged in a corner and slid it between the maneki neko and daruma.

"Oh?"

"Just realizing I hadn't gotten everything out of the box yet. I'll keep an eye out for your magazine just in case, but I think it's a lost cause right now. Y'know, unless you want me to call my uncle to ask him to return your precious magazine to you. If he's found it already, you know he probably thinks it's mine, right?" Souji sat down on the chair in front of his computer and found himself tracing out the dimensions of the room in his mind as they compared to his room in Inaba.

"Huh? Oh yeah! Well, you still owe me for a magazine, alright, partner?"

Souji nodded. "You've got it."

They hung up and Souji broke down the box and stuck it just outside his bedroom door to take down with the recylcing a little later. He checked the time and started to lay out his futon, but stopped with it half-unfolded and picked up the daruma again. "Inaba. I'm going to see it and everyone there again. A lot." He put it back on the shelf and turned it slightly.

Standing back, Souji took it all in. It still didn't feel like home, but it felt like being reminded of home, and that would work for him right now.


End file.
